Starbucks Gets Frap-Slapped by Missouri Pub Owner

Sometimes, I think I should be one of the Occupy Wall Street folks. And then I remember I much I love to bathe and exercise proper oral hygiene and move on to something on TV. Corporate folk so easily forget the times when they struggled, so when “the little guy” gets one over on them, I secretly jump for joy … and publicly come here to relish in the afterglow.

You may be familiar with Starbucks? In their overused, cutsy lingo, the eff word is not what you think a barista says when he or she can’t remember one of those ridiculous hipster diatribe orders in the drive-thru. No, the eff word in question is “Frappuccino.”

However, thanks to this genius move by a pub owner in Missouri, Starbucks may actually be using the other word you were thinking.

He was minding his own business one day when he gets this vitriolic cease-and-desist letter from Starbucks, all because someone referred to one his drinks as a ‘Frappicino‘ on a beer and pub app called Untappd. Granted, the spelling is different because who the hell can even spell ‘Venti’ without looking up the coffee giant’s Latin lexicon. Legal experts will tell you that such a letter requires a written response, and thank the coffee goddess in the Starbucks logo Britton did just that.

So, grab your favorite cup of Joe and read his entire response below. I trust Jeff will getting quite the influx of new patrons at his fine establishment outside St. Louis in St. Charles County. You know, if you’re in the area.

Dear Ms. Owen Kramer
cc Mr Bucks

I represent Exit 6 Pub and Brewery LLC d/b/a “Exit 6″. I am writing in response to your letter dated 12/9/13 in regards to the “Frappuccino” (at risk of further lawsuits, heretofore known as “The F Word”) beer listed on Untapped. As you probably don’t know, Exit 6 is the proud owner of no trademarks including our own name much less than the name “F Word” and nothing about Exit 6 is incontestable.

Exit 6 has proudly sold at least 38 drinks in Cottleville MO and has a strong presence in St Charles county, a suburb 40 miles outside the St Louis metropolis. It has recently come to Exit 6 Pub and Brewerys attention that there were 3 check ins to the beer with a very similar name to the “F Word”. Unfortunately it was only similar to the F Word because we meant to call it the same thing. Lucky for us, we’re poor spelers.

I would like for both Ms Owen Kramer and Mr Bucks to rest assured we meant no deception, confusion, or mistaking in the naming of the beer F Word. We never thought that our beer drinking customers would have thought that the alcoholic beverage coming out of the tap would have actually been coffee from one of the many, many, many stores located a few blocks away. I guess that with there being a Starbucks on every corner of every block in every city that some people may think they could get a Starbucks at a local bar. So that was our mistake.

We want to be sure that Ms Owen Kramer and Mr Bucks know that Exit 6 and the 3 customers that checked into the beer known as the F Word feel just awful about calling a beer the F Word. We are bad people. We feel shame. But know this, Exit 6 has ceased and desisted all use of the F Word and there will be absolutely no further use of the F Word in the naming of any further Exit 6 beers. We tried to contact the website Untappd to tell them to remove the beer called F Word but it looks like you guys beat us to it. Those lawyer fees go a long way. We also promise to stop production of our “Starbuck-McDonalds-Coca Cola-Marlboro Honey Lager” for fear of further repercussions.

Furthermore, in an effort to remain in good standing with Starbucks and Mr Bucks in general, please find enclosed a check for the full amount of profit gained from the sale of those 3 beers. Please apply the enclosed $6.00 towards the legal fees Ms Owen Kramer received for her efforts in nabbing Exit 6 in our dastardly F Word naming practices. We realize Mr Bucks probably paid her more than Exit 6 made last year. We just want to help a business like Starbucks. Us small business owners need to stick together.

I just want to apologize again for any damage Exit 6 did to Starbucks. I certainly didn’t intend to cause any harm to the Starbucks name.

Apologizing Again
Jeff Britton
Owner
Exit 6 Pub and Brewery

PS –– Can we name the beer “Phrappaccino”?
PPS –– Is the name “Honigman Hefeweissen” ok?
PPPS –– Ms Owen Kramer, do you know Mark A? You guys fixed a ticket for him around 2005. He was doing a 103 in a 70.
PPPPS –– Go Blues!

Oh, one last thing: The bold words in the letter was intentional. The kicker of everything, he actually sent the $6 check to “Mr. Bucks.” This guy just served a tall cup of awesome!

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